Quaker addresses Methodists

‘How did a Quaker chartered accountant become a dangerous man?’

‘How did a Quaker chartered accountant become a dangerous man?’ asked Richard Murphy, co-founder of the Tax Justice Network on Monday. He was giving the Beckly Lecture, part of the annual Methodist Conference.  Richard Murphy – who considers himself as ‘a Quaker with some Anglican leanings’ – was described as ‘dangerous’ in a report by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC). The head of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority called him ‘the leader of the international tax Taliban’.

He told the conference he would ‘confess’ what he had done to be treated as ‘an enemy of the state’. He said: ‘This, thankfully, is easy to explain. I have asked people to pay their taxes when due, where due and in the right amount.’

One of the first people to carry out detailed research into tax havens, he founded the Tax Justice Network with John Christensen in 2003.

The Methodist audience in Plymouth heard that tax havens have cost developing countries about £100bn per year – almost exactly the same as the total world aid budget. Turning to the UK, Richard Murphy presented tax justice as an alternative to austerity.

‘There is now a choice to be made,’ he said. ‘We can stop tax cheats cheating or cut pensions. We can cut corporation tax for large companies or cut the NHS. We can sack staff who could crack down on tax avoidance at HMRC or deny our children a proper education.’

Offshore accounting was once part of Richard Murphy’s work. He told the conference: ‘I stand before you as a sinner and ask your forgiveness.’ He described offshore accountancy as ‘quite literally a world of fiction’, in which companies are supposedly based in one country while nearly all their work takes place elsewhere.

He was keen to point to campaign successes: George Osborne has closed a VAT loophole concerning online purchases routed via the Channel Islands. The USA now requires oil and gas companies to present accounts on a ‘country-by-country’ basis, which makes it much harder to cover up tax avoidance. The UK government have ended their subsidy for the Isle of Man, which had helped it to function as a tax haven.

‘This work is the fulfilment of my Christian vocation,’ said Richard Murphy. He added: ‘You simply can’t take the message of Christian concern for the poor out of the Bible and have anything meaningful left. It is, I think, what Christian faith is all about.’

He insisted that public awareness of tax justice had ‘led directly to the creation of the UK Uncut and Occupy movements’. He welcomed both movements, saying they had brought ‘enormous’ pressure to bear on UK companies.

In the autumn, Richard Murphy drew controversy after sharply criticising St Paul’s Cathedral for their response to the Occupy camp on their doorstep. He defended his position on Monday, insisting that Jesus ‘would have been outside on the steps with the Occupy movement’.

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